Woman Seeking Advice Over 'Creepy Neighbor' Constantly Watching Her Backed

A woman who previously accused her two male neighbors of being "nosy, intrusive and controlling" for getting an estate agent to phone her upon seeing that she wasn't around for a few days has caused a storm of debate after she said they are now "creeping me out more."

In a new post shared under the username Mooshamoo on Mumsnet's Am I Being Unreasonable (AIBU) forum, which received at least 125 comments at the time of writing, the woman, who lives in a small town in Ireland, said: "If there was a young woman living alone next to me and I hadn't seen her for a week,I wouldn't dream of getting an estate agent to ring her. It is totally creepy.

"Now I am back in my house, my neighbors are creeping me out more. Many times that I go into my front garden, the men come out and stare at me," she said.

In an October 2017 article published in the New Review of Film and Television Studies, Kelly Oliver, a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, argued "The male gaze is more relevant, and more dangerous, than ever."

The term "male gaze" was first coined by Laura Mulvey, the British professor of film studies at Birkbeck, University of London best known for her 1975 essay titled "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema."

The term describes "the cinematic angle of a heterosexual male on a female character," explains Tara Well, an associate professor of psychology at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, in a November 2017 article for Psychology Today.

Research has shown the male gaze has "significant and pervasive psychological costs" for women, of which they may not even be aware, Well said.

According to the Barnard College professor, the male gaze typically plays out in the following two main ways:

• Actual interpersonal and social encounters (which entails "gazing at women's body parts, making sexual comments").
• Exposure to visual media that highlights women's bodies and body parts, portraying them as "the target of a non-reciprocated male gaze."

Describing one of the men as being "around mid fifties," while the other one is "maybe in his sixties," the woman in the latest Mumsnet post said "the men next door are creepy."

She explained: "They come out and stare at me if I do anything...when I was mowing my front lawn, one of the men came out into his tiny front yard, and just stood and stared at me for an hour. He totally just stood there and gawped.

"They never say a word. Just stare...I'm starting to feel really upset in this house. I wanted to have a nice private house. Now I'm starting to feel uncomfortable every time I go out," the user said.

In a later post, the woman said: "I'm not afraid of every old man," adding "I have worked with some lovely older men. However I AM scared of the creepy older men that harass me. Which I think most women are."

Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment.

Several Mumsnet users have shown support for the woman in the latest viral post, with some suggesting she should get security cameras set up and contact the police.

One user shared a number of ideas from "getting CCTV up and running" to "submitting something online to the police as a way of tracking the behaviour - it can help build up a picture over time."

Another agreed, stating the woman should "Get police advice."

A third commented: "That is awful and creepy...Perhaps get a friend to come and stay or consider a lodger. Not so much for safety, but because this will change the current dynamic where they feel like they outnumber you and can do what they want."

Some said she should confront the neighbors, while other said she should just try to ignore them.

One said: "I'd have probably snapped 'it's rude to stare' by now, men trying to intimidate me like that just gives me the absolute rage...Would it be worth looking to move again?

A second stated: "If a neighbour stood staring at me and not speaking, I would ask them why they are staring? They sound like a bunch of weirdos and I wouldn't feel safe in my home, get some cctv and maybe a dog if possible."

And another suggested: "Your best bet is to mainly ignore it. It's a bit creepy but you just have to laugh at it and ignore it. Being so much closer is quite difficult though."